Scheduling methods for large groups

Debates and discussions on the various race scheduling methods that can be used and their fairness and accuracy in determining the winners.
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Jungle Jim
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

Post by Jungle Jim »

Stan Pope wrote:
Jungle Jim wrote:If you know for a fact that is what they want, then a single, inclusive race is fine. Of course a big flaw is that you are greatly reducing the probability of sending your fastest racers to the next level (if your council has that).
Excellent point!

What is the plan in your area for participation in district/council races, Tom?

In my district each pack sends 4 fastest in each grade. In my Grandson's council, each pack sends three fastest overall, without regard to grade. In a neighboring district, anybody who wants to race in the district race may participate. (BTW, can you guess which race has the highest attendance, in spite of drawing from the smallest pool of boys?)
Our District and Council races are the 3 fastest from each age group.
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

Post by Stan Pope »

Jungle Jim wrote:Our District and Council races are the 3 fastest from each age group.
JJ, would you check for me and find out for me the number of boys who participate in the district race as a percentage of the number of Cub Scouts registered in the district? Same for council races. (I'm betting that the percentage exceeds, probably substantially, the participation rates in races that accept all who want to race. At least that is what a survey that I did some years ago showed.)

Thanks

Meanwhile, Tom needs to be sure of his district/council race participation criteria. Satisfying those criteria should be a primary goal. Then with all the knowledge you soak up from guys like Jim, encourage the boys to represent your pack well at district races. For instance, your pack might pay the entry fees for the top N cars. :)
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Guys, just got an email on District events and here is the announcement on the District Pinewood races:

DISTRICT PINEWOOD DERBY: February 29, 2004 at St. Luke's United Methodist Church. The cost is only $5.00 per entry. Be the first to test out the District's new four lane track! There are going to be many new events this year. For example the Smash Derby promises to be a huge HIT! This is where we set up two tracks that meet in the middle and run two cars on the same track in opposite directions! Photos of your cars will be taken. The Giant Slope was a big hit last year and will return again. A derby car expert will be on site to educate the boys (dads) about the science and building techniques to creating a super fast car.

Somehow I don't get the sense that competitive racing is the focus here!!! Hopefully, my son will do well enough this year that I can encourage him to attend and see what goes on at the District level.
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Check on the racing portion. Sounds like they are open to all comers, tho. May as well participate, tho. Could be interesting.

My initial reaction was that this must be a huge church or they don't have a history of drawing a lot of boys. The latter, I suspect, if they will do it all on one track! (I'd be disappointed if we had less that 300 registered for racing! We draw from something like 1200 Cub Scouts registered in the district. I have a theory that there is a "happy medium" on selectivity that maximizes PWD participation... Not too tight (e.g. 3 or 4 per pack) and not too loose (e.g. anyone who wants to race.) I like our formula of 4 per grade per pack. Among other things, it energizes the pack racing!)

I have really mixed feelings about the "Smash Derby." I'm sure that some would take great pleasure in destroying their cars. I'm not sure that giving sanction to such venting is healthy. Maybe I misunderstand the event. Perhaps you can tell us more about it. Is the point to survive to compete another round? (My family's cars are on plaques hanging on our family room wall. Someday my son will come back and claim his to hang on the wall to intrigue his son ... if he ever gets settled down and gets married!)
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Jungle Jim
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Stan Pope wrote:
Jungle Jim wrote:Our District and Council races are the 3 fastest from each age group.
JJ, would you check for me and find out for me the number of boys who participate in the district race as a percentage of the number of Cub Scouts registered in the district? Same for council races. (I'm betting that the percentage exceeds, probably substantially, the participation rates in races that accept all who want to race. At least that is what a survey that I did some years ago showed.)

Thanks
We have 7 Districts in our Council. In my home District there are approx. 750 Cubs in 24 Packs (I don't have the other Districts breakdown) and approx. 5000 Cubs in the Council. Since the Packs send Cubs from 5 different age groups, we generally have 300 at a District race (not all are active, and you always lose some who decide to cross-over). At the Council race we always seem to get all the qualifiers, which are 105 Cubs. At the District and Council races there are very few no-shows.
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Oops, forgot to do the math :D
40% of Cubs at District
2.1 % of Cubs at Council

Wow, that's the first time I've ever looked at those numbers. No wonder it's so hard to win at Council :!:
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

Post by Stan Pope »

Jungle Jim wrote:
Stan Pope wrote: JJ, would you check for me and find out for me the number of boys who participate in the district race as a percentage of the number of Cub Scouts registered in the district? Same for council races. (I'm betting that the percentage exceeds, probably substantially, the participation rates in races that accept all who want to race. At least that is what a survey that I did some years ago showed.)

Thanks
We have 7 Districts in our Council. In my home District there are approx. 750 Cubs in 24 Packs (I don't have the other Districts breakdown) and approx. 5000 Cubs in the Council. Since the Packs send Cubs from 5 different age groups, we generally have 300 at a District race (not all are active, and you always lose some who decide to cross-over). At the Council race we always seem to get all the qualifiers, which are 105 Cubs. At the District and Council races there are very few no-shows.
Excellent participation rate! Consistent with other districts I polled who took the middle ground of "selective, but not too selective."

IMHO, your district race (and the others, assuming that they also draw large participation rates) are much more valuable to your council than are the council races, since I measure a lot of the value of programs in terms of numbers of boys served as well as the program content delivered.

Your district races serve more than just the 15 boys per pack who qualify, though. The competition for those racing spots energizes the racing in each pack. I think that it energizes the pack competition even more than the council races, since so many would see the "top 3 in the pack" as too much of a challenge.

Oops, let me get down off this pine box.

Okay, well done, JJ!




Are your district and council rules consistent? I don't see our council ever having a council PWD because our several district's rules are all over the map. There is the possibility that someone (who doesn't understand) will decide it would be a great idea and set some rules. .
Stan
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Stan Pope wrote: Are your district and council rules consistent? I don't see our council ever having a council PWD because our several district's rules are all over the map. There is the possibility that someone (who doesn't understand) will decide it would be a great idea and set some rules. .
I am happy to say the rules are Council-wide rules :D . We also seem to have several Scouts who attend the statewide race in Columbus and come home winners (more details of this I don't have, but I've seen pictures :!: ).

Perhaps you could get your Council Exec. to hold a Council-wide Pinewood comm. roundtable. Maybe there you could "hash out" some rules and have a Council race.
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Jungle Jim wrote:
Stan Pope wrote: Are your district and council rules consistent? I don't see our council ever having a council PWD because our several district's rules are all over the map. There is the possibility that someone (who doesn't understand) will decide it would be a great idea and set some rules. .
I am happy to say the rules are Council-wide rules :D . We also seem to have several Scouts who attend the statewide race in Columbus and come home winners (more details of this I don't have, but I've seen pictures :!: ).

Perhaps you could get your Council Exec. to hold a Council-wide Pinewood comm. roundtable. Maybe there you could "hash out" some rules and have a Council race.
I have been tempted to encourage something like that. The problem is that the risk-benefit analysis doesn't support such a move. The incremental benefit is very small. The risk is trashing a program that is very, very good. The risk probability, I think, is rather high.
Stan
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Stan Pope wrote: I have been tempted to encourage something like that. The problem is that the risk-benefit analysis doesn't support such a move. The incremental benefit is very small. The risk is trashing a program that is very, very good. The risk probability, I think, is rather high.
Unless, of course, you talk them into doing everything your way :wink:
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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Hey there guys, my head is spinning reading all this info, I think that there is so much that I have lost something in the passing. I am very new to this hardcore PwD stuff. We have just been given a 6 lane track we have a electronic timer and I have recently purchased Randy's managment. Is this the fairest way to race?. I read in the past few posts that you are looking for the fastest cars in a pack or group, can't you just look at the elapsed times and there you would have a list of the fastest in one race per car. Not saying that I would want to limit the boys to one race, bou one post said they raced for 4 hours.... I'm lucky if I can get families to hang around through a 1 hour pack meeting let alone 4 hour even for a pinewood derby race. Is there a happy medium.
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

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ABoelow wrote:Hey there guys, my head is spinning reading all this info, I think that there is so much that I have lost something in the passing. I am very new to this hardcore PwD stuff. We have just been given a 6 lane track we have a electronic timer and I have recently purchased Randy's managment. Is this the fairest way to race?. I read in the past few posts that you are looking for the fastest cars in a pack or group, can't you just look at the elapsed times and there you would have a list of the fastest in one race per car. Not saying that I would want to limit the boys to one race, bou one post said they raced for 4 hours.... I'm lucky if I can get families to hang around through a 1 hour pack meeting let alone 4 hour even for a pinewood derby race. Is there a happy medium.
There are a lot of things that can make for a long race or a short race. I believe the main contributors to be how many total heats you are trying to run and how organized the race staff is in getting racers to the start line. If your staff is not very organized, the race can really drag on and if you have a very large number of racers, then there will be a great number of heats to run. If your race staff is fairly organized, you can get your heat turnaround times between 1 - 1.5 minutes and a well organized crew can get get that down well under a minute. I believe for Stan's district race they are running around 35 seconds between heats (correct me if I am wrong Stan).

So, how many racers are you trying to run?
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Re: Scheduling methods for large groups

Post by Stan Pope »

gpraceman wrote:If your race staff is fairly organized, you can get your heat turnaround times between 1 - 1.5 minutes and a well organized crew can get get that down well under a minute. I believe for Stan's district race they are running around 35 seconds between heats (correct me if I am wrong Stan).
Very close, The target is 34 seconds per heat, assuming 3 cars per heat and boys staging and retrieving their own cars on a 32 foot Piantedosi track. To maintain this pace, the crew must really have their act together. All of the possible operation overlap must be realized. For instance the boys and starter must be ready to begin staging the next heat as soon as the current heat is released. And, there are some things that we will not do to shorten the cycle time ... We wait for the boys to get to the finish line and ready to cheer their cars on before releasing the starting gate. A few really meticulous racers will sometimes blow the goal out of the water in their zeal to have their car staged perfectly, but that is okay. This is, after all, their event.

Meanwhile, AB, please go back and read the background material agian. I think your concerns have been addressed.
Stan
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